The above recently appeared on one of the Linkedin discussion boards after the Referendum Vote on Britain leaving the EU. At first I thought it was a “send up” but then realised it was deadly serious.

What a pathetic response from the CEO of the CIPD* to the referendum result. What did he think was going to happen, people going into work verbally assaulting each other, punch ups between long standing work colleagues, mass demonstrations outside companies?

Has the CIPD ever issued such a diatribe, post any other election, local or national…..I think not.

What we have here is the namby pamby, mealy mouthed, PC nonsense that gives organisations like the CIPD a bad name. No wonder the HR function in many organisations is treated with derision and contempt when they promote this kind of rubbish.

I notice that Mr Cheese whitters on about “safe, secure and valued at work”…

when it comes to recruitment methods. They persisted with graphology when every right-thinking person agreed it was a nonsense with no scientific evidence that it worked.

Having said that it seems to be becoming popular again according to a recent article in the Guardian, and not just in France where 75% of companies admit to using it. For psychologists like me it’s up there with corporate psychics advising on who to hire or fire.

But I digress because the latest fad is hand-reading!

Jean de Bony is a French consultant who claims that he can tell if you are a born leader by looking at your hand and fingerprints. Have you got a broad palm, long finger-nails, arches, spirals or loops in your fingerprints? Are your hands cold, warm, or moist? Just to give one example he claims that people with cold, moist hands are unsuited to positions of responsibility.

He claims to have analysed 10,000 hands, including those of 300 famous people including Nicholas Sarkozy and Charlotte Rampling, to help him devise his system which he calls biotypologie and which he claims gives him an insight into our temperament. However he has never published his studies so they have never been tested scientifically.

In fact at one point in the 1980s he had to leave the country after outrage at his theory which critics claimed was similar to Hitler’s approach to genetics. Facing death threats he fled to Canada and when he later returned he was welcomed back by businesses who wanted him to help on hiring and retention decisions.

The fact that large insurance companies and energy suppliers made decisions based on fingerprint patterns and warm hands is amazing. He has since moved on to running seminars for well-known fashion houses, construction companies, and hotel groups. He says he has never met a business leader with cold wet hands as if that proves his theory.

He has a new book out called Ce Que Révelent Vos Mains (what your hands reveal). He rejects the accusation that he is promoting a modern version of palmistry which he claims is for charlatans. He says his method is a factual assessment of the present and is something “I wanted to create … that was accessible and universal and that can be reproduced”.

If you want something for your next party you could try it out as long as you don’t take it too seriously. Back in the 1970s I had similar fun with the Lüscher colour test although it has a longer pedigree and its developer better scientific credentials than Monsieur de Bony.

——————————————————————————————

For more information about graphology’s lack of validity see these two sources:

Is there a difference? With the number of people working zero-hours contracts up by 20% last year there are now 3/4 million people who have no guaranteed income.

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) there are more women than men and 20% of the jobs are held by students.

So with low rates of pay the norm, government claims that these contracts offer people the flexibility people want looks a bit thin to me. Employers love it of course and insist that it benefits both sides. That is fanciful.

Workers on zero-hours contracts have no guarantees about work, are often contacted at short notice and if they turn down the offer too often they don’t get any work. CIPD research found that 20% of workers on these contract were penalised if they weren’t available for work when the call came. Half said they received no notice at all or found out at the start of the shift that work had been cancelled. How ethical is that?

Talking to checkout staff at Tesco I was told all new employees are on zero-hours contracts. Supermarkets not only use these contracts but pay low rates. Having workers on part-time hours, an average of 25 a week being offered although 40% of employees wanted more, employers expect the government to make up earnings to a living standard through the benefit system. So taxpayers are effectively subsiding these employers.

The TUC said “people employed on these contracts earn £300 a week less on average than workers in secure jobs.” The TUC General Secretary challenged any minister or business leader to survive on a low-paid zero-hours contract job, not knowing from one day to the next how much work they will have.

The Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills said that zero-hours contracts had a part to play in a modern, flexible, labour market. “For workers such as students and those with caring responsibilities they provide a pathway to employment particularly when the individual cannot commit to regular hours”

And the CBI, as you might expect, said the figures show that zero-hours contracts were most common among groups where flexibility benefited both parties. Of course.

The UK has 31 million workers of whom almost 23 million work full-time. Of the remainder it is claimed that almost 700,000 are “power part-timers” who work less than a 5-day week but earn the equivalent of more than £40,000 a year.

According to the ONSaverage part-time earnings are £9,000 compared with £27,195 for full-time workers. The Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion analysed the ONS data further and found almost 700,000 people earning the equivalent if £40,000 a year.

These high earning part-timers are not just parents wanting to spend more time with their children but people who want to have a better work-life balance and pursue other interests.

However because someone earns £20,000 for a 2-day week doesn’t mean they have the spending power of someone earning £50,000 a year. I once earned £1,200 for a days work but that doesn’t mean I earned £300,000 a year.

I’m not denying that working part-time has its advantages as long as you have a reasonable income to support your life-style. Most jobs could probably be covered on a part-time or job-share basis and the idea of having a portfolio career is nothing new.

Timewise, a company which specialises in part-time workers, says its receiving a record number of male entries for this year’s annual power part-time list of the top 50 people in business-critical roles. They say “Career success needn’t be a 5-day week. The reality is that if you perform well and deliver what you need to, a modern forward-thinking business will give you the freedom on where and when you work”

Ten years after the government first introduced the right to flexible working, last year it extended the right to ask for flexible working arrangements to all employees (not just those with children) provided they had worked for the company for at least 26 weeks.

But there is a huge divide between these so-called “power part-timers” who enjoy the freedom and flexibility they have and people on zero-hours contracts worrying about how many hours of work they will receive each week.